[ExI] Belief in maths (was mind body dualism)

[samantha]

darren shawn greer wrote:
>
>  
> 2010/7/7 darren shawn greer <dgreer_68 at hotmail.com 
> <mailto:dgreer_68 at hotmail.com>>
>
>     >Lack of evidence is a perfectly fine reason to not think
>     something is so.  If it also has logical inconsistency problems
>     and/or has no explanatory theory that is sufficiently sound then
>     that is more reason to disbelief it.<
>
>
>     It is such an important discussion, for secular humanists and
>     religious humanists are constantly having this argument. "Absence
>     of evidence is not evidence of absence" and "It most certainly is!"
>
Is there really anything to say further though?  If there are no 
criteria for when it is remotely rational to accept a belief that are 
agreed upon by the people having a discussion then they ight as well be 
doing something else than this "discussion".  It is guaranteed to be 
fruitless.
>
> >Indeed most posthumanists could not care less instead of the 
> "evidence of non-existence". The very >concept of the monotheistic 
> God, e.g., is simply not palatable, irrespective of whether it be 
> "true" or not,>and whatever "true" might mean in the first place.
>  
> Thanks, for that was my original point, that the argument is 
> polarizing and pointless and zaps useful energies and that 
> collectively as a species we'd be better off abandoning it altogether.
If we haven't clarity of mind and plunk enough to deal with such grand 
widely held fairy tales then why would we expect to make much difference 
anywhere?  What I mean is that if we can't unify a rational viewpoint 
even for ourselves then what business do we have decrying irrationality 
or extolling rationality?  What is our basis for hoping for a better 
world? 

>  My belief is that in a (perhaps remote) future the concept of god as 
> we currently define it -- ie. the Supreme Being-- will cease to even 
> have meaning.
Why put it off to the remote future except out of cowardice?

> However, someone else made the point that it is currently very 
> relevant, as we see alot of violence and political strife because of 
> it. May be, but I no longer argue about my meta-physical beliefs or 
> yours or even think much about those subjects at all.
That is a pity because without it you cannot fully integrate your 
thinking and doing on the basis of it.
> I do however spend alot of time semantically defending my position 
> that theism vs athiesm is a losing proposition on both sides, as long 
> as one is trying to convince the other of the correctness of their own 
> belief.

I am not so big on trying to convince others as I am on understanding 
when it is valid to consider something true to the best of one's 
knowledge and evidence and applying that as widely as possible.   I gave 
up decades ago attempting to convince people who have no standards at 
all to appeal or adhere to in the process of discussing a subject.  
Getting them to agree with me would be meaningless if it has no depth of 
basis in them.   

I once led an intelligent, honest fundamentalist friend step by step, 
starting from what she did believe to be true outside fundamentalist 
conclusions, to see clearly that her beliefs were highly inconsistent 
and contradictory and the bible was filled also with such 
contradictions, inconsistencies also and with many horrid things.  She 
saw perfectly clearly that much of what she believed to be true could 
not be true.   Do you know what she said at the end?  It was what 
persuaded me to not do that again.  "Thank you for your patience and 
even, calm, fair discussion with me.  I learned a lot and see that you 
are largely right in what you said at the beginning.  But this is what I 
believe and I like believing it so I am going to keep doing so."


- samantha

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20100712/e257b827/attachment.html>